


Spiral Notebook: Drabbles

by Shorlinne



Category: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Genre: AU, Drabbles, F/M, Past, Unfinished, Unpolished, in-universe, not-so-obligatory story about being on a plane, obligatory cafe scenes, obligatory raining fic, present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shorlinne/pseuds/Shorlinne
Summary: A series of un-connected, unfinished Roger and Jessica drabbles and explorations. Different openings for each chapter; Some more seriously inclined than others. "Raindrops", "Harebourne", and "Cafe".All by S.





	1. Raining

_RainFluff_

A piece I did for a friend of mine while on vacation together. We got rained on every single day: She was alright with it, I wasn’t. So, I decided to vent my frust-rain-sions (hah) with some cute fluff.

 

\---------

 

_Krrrack boom!_

The thunder rolled outwards, echoing harsh across the low, gray clouds. It was muffled only by the rain, a seemingly ceaseless torrent determined to get through the cracks and crevices of the low ceiling. Water slithered between the slats and landed in fat heavy drops, soaking the world to its roots. Plants shivered, leaves upward and sighed As new life washed over them all, embracing and drinking in the change of seasons…

Which is a fantastic thing for plants, but less so Rabbits. 

Jessica shuddered under the bus shelter, arms wrapped tight around her torso, her gloves plastered to her arms and her wet hair slapped to her face. Her makeup had been run off a while ago, and her dress clung tighter, the wet fabric accentuating the shudder of her tall frame. Two white ears peeked above her, twining down to the head of her husband who was trying to desperately make himself into an umbrella, tippy toed with his arms snuggled around her waist. She couldn't hear him through the rain, and a bright blue plastic poncho muffled his words further,

“Gee, Jessica! I'm sorry that wind took your poncho. Are you okay?”

“F-fine, d-d-d--”

“Darling? Dearest? Devoted? Devilishly handsome?”

“ _Drenched._ ”


	2. Harebourne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flight-fic. Roger experiences some flight terror, gets separated from Jessica, and tries to get back to his darlin'.  
> Jessica, meanwhile, really enjoys a mixed drink and wonders why her husband is taking so long in the lavatory.
> 
> \---
> 
> Basing it off of some real documentation of flights in the 50’s!  
> http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5461411
> 
> https://www.fastcodesign.com/3022215/what-it-was-really-like-to-fly-during-the-golden-age-of-travel
> 
> It might be a bumpy ride…
> 
> \-----

The rapid clicks of the counters rolling over caused Roger to jump, ears sliding back as he glanced upwards, a single foot tapping and twitching impatiently. He buzzed slightly, rattling between his lines, before a soft hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed gently. Jessica knelt beside him, breath warm on his cheek, her perfume a distant mix of orchids that swam around him and warmed him with her words:

“Honeybunny?”

“Y-essss, lovecup?” Rogers eyes rolled to meet hers, and the foot tapping slowed down to a stop as her smile found his gaze, and she brushed her lips over his cheek, murmuring:

“You'll be fine. This is nothing like Berlin. No parachutes, no rifles, no drop. I promise.”

“Well, if you insist…”

He swallowed hard and shut his eyes, taking a deep breath as Jessica set her bag aside and reached down to massage both of his shoulders, humming lowly,

“Think about how much fun we’ll have! The beach, sand, sun, drinks with umbrellas…”

Roger peered one eye open and raised an eyebrow, “Swimsuits? Sand castles? Seagulls?”

“All that and more. Maybe,” her hand moved to run through his hair, curling it up with a twist of her hand, her voice _lowering_ for him and him alone,

“Maybe even _less_.”

“Oh- Wow--” His foot started up again and he stood straight as she leaned back, stifling a laugh and patting him fondly on the back. 

“Gee, Jessica! You know how to get a fella going!”

“So Ive been told. Oh, Roger, do you think I overpacked…?”

“Nonsense, my sweet!” Roger beamed and ravhed for her bag, “Im sure you only bought the essential-- _oh, boy.”_

He trailed off as he turned to take her bag, and found that despite it being the size of a small bowling case, she seemed to have jammed in an elephant's worth of luggage. Sweating as he struggled to lift it, Roger barely managed to squeak out,

“Uhm! L-lambchop, lovey, light of my life--!”

He heaved, huffing as he scraped it along the ground, certain the wheels were leaving grooves in the floor deep enough to plant a harvest in,

“Yes?” Jessica glanced down at him, compact in hand, lipstick just nearly poised to application. She smiled slowly at him and raised a brow, “I _could_ carry that-”

“HAB-SO-LUTELY not!” Roger gasped and hefted the case. He sank an inch into the carpet, but persevered, wheezing,

“Not my darling! Dearest! My dame! My dime! Not-- A single-- finnngerrrr-”

He managed a single step forward. The floor collapsed. 

“Roger!” Jessica snapped the compact shut and hauled him and the case upright and outright, hauling him up to her at eye height without a shudder via his overalls. 

“Roger, darling?” Roger blinked quickly and tottered a moment, giggling,

“Oh! Birds!” And he was gone. 

\---

Minutes later, or perhaps it was longer yet, Roger stirred feebly. Something vaugely itchy had been thrown over him, and he felt wretchedly cramped as he uncurled from a tight ball, head throbbing. He’d never have knotted himself into such a position, a predicament, a picadillo, a pretzel--! Arms overhead and legs tucked under his chin, it was if someone had rolled him up in a slightly fetid, fraying blue blanket and shoved him in a bin… It was awfully dark wherever he was. Uncurling and stretching one foot, Roger blinked away the hazy stars and groaned, sticking one leg outward as far as he could-- To be met with a harsh yelp and a kick. Crying out in alarm, he drew his foot back, and a well-suited, heavily-mascara’d, glaring blonde knelt down and prodded him right in the nose: “Return to your SEAT, sir!”

“Seat?” “Hmph!” THe woman stood and straightened her skirt, balancing a tray of bourbon with aplomb and forced dignity as she huffed, tapping away on teeting heels down the carpeted aisle, “They start earlier and earlier on these flights! Ought to be a _law_..”

Roger furrowed his brow and managed to crawl out from… Wherever he was. As soon as he stuck his head out, low plumes of smoke seemed to wreath him-- He coughed, and ducked back, eyes watering, squinting. Where was he? Oh. A seat loomed up ahead of him, difficult to discern through the mask of cigarette and cigar smoke rendering the air filthy. Through the haze, he could see distant gleams of cherry-red lit ends, and though his eyes watered he remained hopeful. Among the myriad of smells threatening to choke him, he was _sure_ he could discern Jessica’s brand…

Roger crawled out, taking a deep breath of air before he lost it to the haze, and hacking, found his seat. He fumbled for the belt, and wheezing, patted the arm beside him, 

“Gee, Jessica! I thought you were cutting down-” “ExCUSE YOU!” The arm pulled back sharply and swatted Roger’s hand away. It was much _heavier_ than Jessica’s-- And...Hairier. Roger gulped and shrank back meekly, “Oh! Sorry Ma’am!” “Hmph!” Was the retort, and Roger quietly wondered if he ought to keep a tally of how often he’d have to hear _that_. Favorite vocal tics of the author aside, he squinted through the smoke and restrained a cough-- Jessica had to be here _somewhere_ didn’t she? Why would they have put him away from her?


	3. Diner: First Dates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Film AU
> 
> Set in a pre-film semi-AU: Roger and Jessica go on their first day after working on film shoots together for a while. It’s a little dicey: Jessica is coming from a broken-off engagement and bitter about not being taken seriously in this god-awful town, and Roger-- Well, he’s a hopeful farmboy from Kansas with dreams of making people laugh.
> 
> Jessica hasn’t laughed in _years_.
> 
> I’ve tried to write and re-write this first-date thing on multiple occasions, but it never quite pans out or finishes. I only really like half the jokes in this one, the rest make me want to tear my damn hair out.
> 
> Someday I’ll get back to it and finish it up.

\---

“So, what is it you want to _do_ again..?”

The coffee shop was filled with the low clutter of spoons and cups being moved, served, arranged: Roger had invited Jessica here specifically, and she’d agreed-- It was her first date in months. One soured date after another had left a poor taste in her mouth.

She wasn’t eager about it, but-- Here they were. Together. The two of them. And the silence between them was suffocating: Two toons in an all-human diner. It seemed like the setup of one long, cruel joke...

Jessica side eyed Roger across from her in his best bow tie, which according to all rules of levity, was lopsided. Jessica suppressed a sigh, and stilled her hand from the urge to rub her temples. She'd been encouraged by _Raoul,_ their mutual director, to get to know the toon better after barely a week in production. 

Roger was an “up and comer”-- and all she wanted to do was be an out and runner. Her hands wrapped tight around the small cup of espresso, and she willed all her concentration on it bubbling into a deathly poison. She wasn't ready for this sort of thing-- Was she?

The clatter of coffee spoons and stirring of cups overwhelmed her for a moment and she willed herself to not look away, fingertips trapping the side of the cup slightly. 

The rabbit didn't seem to notice. His hands fluttered nervously on the tabletop and he was having trouble meeting her eyes, biting back a smile -- she wasn't sure if it was cocky or nervous. After a fumble with the spoon in his chocolate milk, which rattled from the saucer with a clatter that made her cringe, he managed-- no, seemed to _blurt_ with a desperate, frantic hope,

“Well- I- I mean, I just wanna make people laugh!”

His bow tie spun for comedic effect. She stared and he smiled hopelessly as her own try at a smile faded into a face he couldn't quite read,

“I just wanna make people happy. Isn't that what everyone wants?”

Jessica stared at him for a moment, then something in her eyes closed like a distant door and her lips thinned, hands tightening around the cup. The atmosphere was claustrophobic, and lord knew he meant well, but she wasn’t ready. Not at all.

Swallowing a sniff, she lied-- hard and as a cold as a statue:

“No.”

“Oh!” A beat: “ _Oh._ ”

Roger looked slightly crushed, and seemed to sink into his chair. Jessica watched the way his shoulders slumped, and his lip drew in as he chewed on it, but he didn't seem to have anything else to add. She felt briefly guilty, but he couldn't go on thinking that way forever, right? She's stopped long ago. It'd hurt but it had to die-- a lot of dreams have to die to get where you need to be. 

Jessica mulled the thought over for a minute, then pushed it back. No. He'd have to learn sooner or later- it was cruel _not_ telling him now. 

Yet, something stirred in him as she shut those distant doors. She couldn't see it but the wheels were turning, his fists clenching quietly as he pushed his cup back and announced,

“You know what? I'm tired of this!”

Jessica looked up with a start, and Roger was rising from his seat, people were turning around and looking, heat was rising in her face. 

“I've had enough of this from-- from everyone! And now you let it get to you, too?”

Roger barely looked at her as he plunked his wallet on the table, accompanied by a rubber chicken, a pie tin, some change and a small top. Jessica boggled. 

“I know it's a pipe dream-- the movies aren't the kind of place for a rabbit! Everyone wants those sad black and white pictures in dim rooms with dames and murder a-and who knows what!”

He kicked at the ground and she flinched; he didn't seem to notice, so wrapped up in his speech his heels dragged and kicked up dust on an otherwise clean floor. He turned to look at her finally, and she wished he hadn't:

“Well, nuts to them. I'm gonna do it! Somehow, some way-- I didn't come all the way out here for nothin’.”

He took his wallet back and hesitated as he turned to the door, the small bell breaking a wall of otherwise silence,

“And neither did you. Goodnight, Jessica. Thanks for the...the time, I guess.”

The door swept shut and didn't slam. It ought to have, by all the rules of the world, and he had every right to be angry but he'd left--

She could see him moving down the street, a small shadow with hunched shoulders. They twitched at an odd interval and her heart lurched. 

Even after everything she'd still scare him off-- it wasn't something she could shake. It hadn't always been this way-- and he’d tried so hard, holding doors and carrying THINGS, cracking jokes and trying to get her to smile, never wavering even when she told him to leave, to go home-- he always came back. 

She hadn't wanted to get to know him like she had; she'd resisted. But yet, in every step and laugh and joke and smile and grin and silly little song, in the way he carried his head and stuck out a grin and tripped over his ears but kept on going, in the way he laughed louder and longer, far warmer, and treated her like she was meant to be somebody… She'd known him better than she thought. He'd stuck out the draconian scheduling and regulations, worked alongside the harshest and the highest, always a sidekick to slapstick but he kept going, making sure he had the time to stop by and say hello. 

She hadn't even noticed for the longest time, but every day at craft someone had saved her a cup and a napkin with something sweet on it-- and she'd caught him the day before she agreed to all _this_ and he said he just wanted to look out for her. She'd told him she didn't need it. 

Now, all alone with all eyes on her, feeling the weight of his absence… Maybe she did. 

He'd been there to hold the door she'd stormed out of. She’d left his swinging and it hadn't even slammed. 

She'd been poorly to him and she knew it, but she’d rationalized it in her defense: 

she didn't want to get hurt again. 

But, she realized, the cold air creeping up on her and dread filling her stomach--

She didn't want to hurt _him_ , either. 

Jessica left the table dirty and the tip against her half-touched espresso, and flew out the door after him. She had to find him, she had to do right--

The door eased shut behind her with the barest of tinkles from the bells. 

Roger kicked down the alleyway, his hands in his pockets. It hadn't gone well and he knew it-- but maybe she had a point. It's been months without so much as an unscripted yuck from anyone but Herman, and he wasn't pulling in laughs like he used too when he walked down the street. Everyone had their noses down and their papers up, or their eyes locked on something beneath their nose and their jaws set wherever they went. Even a pratfall in the main had just caused stares; maybe he was losing the touch, the golden hare gone to goose. 

Still. He'd kept it up for ma and pa back home; he wrote a joke in every letter and ma made sure to tell him how much she loved them when he made enough to call. There was at least that-- but he couldn't go back to that. A farmhouse is no place for a practical joker, and they'd told him he needed to be where his talents were appreciated. Now, it seemed like that was looking to be nowhere…

He sighed, settling down on a crate next to a tall apartment building, the alley hunched and warm with rising steam from the sewer grates. He wasn't near enough to toon town to risk hitchhiking yet, and the last trolley down had taken him into town. Jessica didn't live with other Toons-- so he'd hoofed it to find a place she'd like, be comfortable with. She was a different class of Toon. 

“Not that it matters,” he muttered, pulling out a scrap of paper. He'd written all his plans down for the evening--

One. Invite Jessica to dinner. Check. 

Two. Show her the new trick with the spoon!

Three. Ask her if she'd like to have dinner again. 

Four. Get her to smile

Five. Keep her smiling

He hadn't even made it to the second point, and the fifth was looking as distant as a haystack from a highway. He thumbed the paper over and folded it, tucking it away inside his overall pocket and hunching down. Maybe she just wasn't meant to be--

He couldn't think it. All he'd wanted was to see her _smile_ \-- not even _laugh_. She'd been so sad since they’d met and he knew there was something else there, something he had to get too. It was important in a way he couldn't place, but he knew he was _meant_ to do it--

Well. He’d thought he'd known. Now he wasn't so sure; if he couldn't get anyone else to smile, what hope did he have for her? 

Roger scuffed his feet along the ground and settled into a crate, turning the paper over to reveal a hastily pasted advertisement: _Come to Hollywood Land and make dreams come true! The world could be yours! Looking for eager young stars ready to make it big. For information, send a self addressed stamp to. .._

He'd waited weeks for the mail to come back to him. A little leaflet, fifty cents out of pocket, giving him all the information he needed on making it big in the golden city. Sure, some stuff wasn't for him-- all the suits and ties and elbow rubbing-- he was a _toon_ , after all. No one sent toons leaflets, but they didn't have to know who he was to take his money. He'd been packed and ready to go two days later, with just a bus ticket in his pocket and the dog-eared manual in his fist, a cardboard suitcase with his best gags and gear and he was off. 

He’d lost the leaflet four days in, but that was okay. He'd had it memorized. He knew what he was meant to do, how bright he was meant to shine--

And now, he was here, and the sky just seemed like an expanse of bigger brighter lights than he was, casting him into the background. Who was he kidding? He couldn't make it here. Couldn't make a single girl smile. Can't make the dream come true. Perhaps he'd been better off in Kansas. 

Footsteps were coming down the road rapidly and Roger looked up sharply. It wasn't a great part of town, especially if you were inclined to smear when presented with turpentine. The absence of an existence gave one pause when it came to muggers; they'd wipe your or your wallet and it'd just be a trip to the cleaners for them. 

“I- I'm armed!” Roger put up his fists nervously as the sound approached, slowing. He looked around desperately to find something to make his claim true, cursing his leaving his springs on the table, when a voice trembled from the far end of the alley:

“You look a little bare handed to me.”

Rogers fists lowered, and then his eyes as Jessica stepped forward. She swallowed, and stammered,

“Or- Maybe I ought to say..Rabbit-handed?”

“That's a low blow!” Roger retaliated and then blinked:

“Wait. What? Did you just-”

“I'm sorry!” Jessica blurted and her hands flew to her mouth. Roger eyed her a moment, then slowly pointed one finger accusingly,

“Did you just -- _try to make a pun?”_

“It was a poor try,” she managed, and drew in on her lower lip. There was a pause and she looked away, brushing her hair back-- it swept back into place immediately as her shoulders slumped,

“I'm sorry. I'm- I'm a poor host, a poor date, and a poor joker.”

“You just tried to make a pun.”

“I know! It was terrible- I'm not harey well rehearsed-”

“You did it again!”

“No!” Jessica's hands flew back and she looked up at him, horrified. She was making a mockery of the situation, of everything--

And he was grinning at her. She couldn't stop the next words:

“I really want to try again-- they aren't bunny!”

**Author's Note:**

> _For J and our matching bracelets, my still-soaking shoes, our Hollywood shenanigans, and my apologies for remembering only about 3/4 of those shenanigans because I was drunk._


End file.
